Tag Archives: Public Pamphlet

An earlier posting promised some additional remarks about a pair of recent arrivals to the LVA/VNP microfilm collection: the Metro Virginia News and the Public Pamphlet of Leesburg, Virginia. Rather than just a masthead, as earlier, let’s take a look at a complete front-page for each of these Northern Virginian papers. First the weekly Metro Virginia News:

This copy of July, 1974 is an example of the paper at its best. It provides to readers detailed coverage of a local governing decision relating to an issue of increasing concern and debate: managing economic growth. The goal was to provide an alternative to the more established Loudoun Times-Mirror, a paper without competition since the mid 1950’s, and to the advantage of interested readers, they often succeeded. But, as journalist A. J. Leibling reminds, “The function of the press in society is to inform, but its role in society is to make money.” The enterprise was ill-timed. It coincided with a recession.

The Metro Virginia News published for just over two years, November of 1972 until December 1974, reaching a circulation of about 4000, some 8000 shy of the Times-Mirror. A financial sinkhole, not profit, beckoned. The newspaper, as well as ownership of the more solidly grounded Fauquier Democrat to the county south, was sold to Arthur Arundel, publisher of, pause, the Times-Mirror. The Democrat continued while the Metro Virginia News, to no one’s surprise, was shuttered.

But to return to the paper’s origin – an experienced editor, a young and extremely capable staff cannot simply will itself into being. Who provided the catalyst of money?

Again Leibling, a remark in greater circulation than of previous: “Freedom of the Press is guaranteed only to those who own one.” Helmi Carr, unhappy with her representation in the local … read more »